Upon reviewing the literature from various scholarly journals and online databases, the current trend in teacher education in technology, is that while we should continue to work with teachers to incorporate technology into their lessons, we should begin to focus on pre-service teachers and bolstering their ability to use technology before they reach the classroom. Today’s teacher has a plethora of technology available to them to utilize in their classrooms but it seems as if most teachers are too afraid to use it. It is important to continue to educate teachers on how to use the technology that is available. Technology in-services, if done right, can be very beneficial to the teachers who attend them so that they can use any available technology in their classrooms. Pre-service teachers need to spend time learning the technologies in classrooms. This will ensure that we will not have another generation of teachers in the classroom who fail to use the most up to date technologies.
There are many benefits to working with teachers to develop a sense of technology use for their own classrooms. In many of the studies that I looked at I found that teachers want to be able to use technology in their classroom. They expect to be able to walk in the day of a lesson and want the technology to work without ever understanding how it works. They want to be able to use it as a support system to what they are teaching and hope that it will be able to aide them in the education of their students (Bowman, Newman and Masterson, 2001; Norton, Campbell and Cooper, 2000). Unfortunately for many of the teachers, the research also talks about teachers not wanting to learn all they need to before implementing technology or they feel that the effort required of them to learn all about the new technologies does not outweigh the rewards when it comes to integration of technology into their lessons.
This negative of teachers not wanting to use technology as much falls under the category of them simply not being comfortable using the available technology because they never learned how. In Bowman’s study they discuss that teachers need to be open to the change and have a desire to bring technology into their classroom if they want to change the stigma of not using technology. They focused on the question “How is technology adapted for use in education within a school district and in what ways can teachers be used as a point of contact to engage this work?” (Bowman, et al., 2001) They answered this question through a series of activities that they studied. The first activity that was discussed, which was also discussed in Norton’s study and in Boser and Daugherty’s study, involved asking questions of teachers. They asked teachers and coordinators in their schools about resources available to them and what they wanted to see happen in in-services to better serve their needs. (Bowman, et al., 2001; Norton et al., 2000; Boser and Daugherty, 1994) When you give a staff of teachers the ability to answer questions about what they want to do, you will be able to focus their needs in a Teacher In-Service that will benefit them. “Teachers must be involved in all phases of the planning process even if they have limited understanding of how they will use technology.” (Bowman, et al., 2001)
On all levels if you can get teachers talking about technology in their classrooms, you can get them excited about wanting to bring technology into their lessons. Other trends that Bowman’s team brings up are the inclusion of teachers in developing a plan of action to incorporate technology into their school. This gets teachers excited about the prospect of using technology as well as giving them a sense of wanting to use the technology that will be available for them. (Bowman, et al., 2001) Norton’s team discussed using computers in mathematics education and how effective they can be if the staff is open to the ideas. If teachers are not opened to ideas and they are stuck in their own ways of teaching and never using technology then the job of any technology in-service trainer is made that much harder. (Norton, et al., 2000) If educators do not step out of their comfort zone and try to accept a new way of teaching by using technology, they will never learn to use technology successfully in their own classroom.
Allowing teachers to learn elements of technology will ultimately allow them to be more comfortable integrating technology into their lessons. Some teachers already have an innate ability when it comes to technology, so being able to use a knowledgeable teacher as a resource for a teacher who knows less about technology becomes invaluable. In Hsiung’s paper on Professional Development, she discusses that “teachers do want to keep informed and improve on their ability to help their students learn better, but they use a variety of resources…they rely heavily on each other for professional growth.” (Hsiung, 2000) Bowman’s team and Hsiung have polar opposite findings when it comes to the trends on In-Services for technology during the summer months. Bowman discusses that it is a positive to work in the summer that teachers can work at their own pace and get it completed easily while Hsiung feels that summer workshops are ineffective way to integrate technology because the teachers are removed from the classroom for a summer vacation. (Bowman, et al., 2001; Hsiung, 2000) Looking at the research, it is up to an in-service instructor to get a feel for what his target audience already knows and allow those that have knowledge in the field of technology to be able to assist and help lead discussions on technology. With this there will be more open dialogue between educators and the ability to use technology will become easier as more people become comfortable discussing its uses. This open dialogue between a novice computer user and a more knowledgeable technology user in a school could encourage discussions of what can be accomplished all school year.
One other trend that was introduced in the studies was that of modeling a specific idea or technology to the staff and allowing them to see it in action before working with it themselves. Boser’s study and Norton’s study on mathematics teachers discuss modeling as a way to introduce technology into in-services and classrooms. “Modeling is a meaningful educational practice, therefore it is important to understand the types of instructional methods used to deliver in-service activities.” (Boser and Daugherty, 1994) In Norton’s study the idea was to show how math software could help and assist in teaching concepts of mathematics. The problem was that many of the educators were set in their ways of teaching and could not be bothered by using technology. When showed the program and what it could do and after allowing the presenter to use the program with students in their class, many of the math teachers felt better about computers and the program use in their own classroom. (Norton, et al., 2000) Even if they do not continue to use the technology this study shows the importance of modeling technologies to current teachers. It allows them to see the benefit and ease some of the fears and anxieties of losing control in their classroom to a machine.
Pre-Service teachers have a distinct advantage over teachers that have been teaching for a longer period of time. They have exposure to new and upcoming technologies being introduced to them at their teacher training institution. This is one of the biggest benefits that they can enjoy. There is research out there that suggests that students entering into teacher training lack skills to be proficient in technology due to the fact they came from a school that lacked in technology. (Oberlander and Talbert-Johnson, 2007) In the same study however, in order to get these students up to date on technologies for classrooms they need to be exposed to effective technology integration early on in their training. Technology as a teaching tool will be utilized more by those more comfortable with implementing it and understanding how to use it.
Showing pre-service teachers how to use technology before they enter the classroom will allow them to focus on using technology the right way. Oberlander and Talbert-Johnson discuss that this will allow pre-service teachers to access higher order thinking skills in the practice and use of technology for their classroom. In a study done by Linda Lohr, Manisha Javeri, Chris Mahoney, Dawn Strongin, and James Gall at the University of Northern Colorado, they realized that coming into teaching already using the technology and understanding how to use it puts them ahead of teachers already in place and teaching classes. (Lohr, Javeri, Mahoney, Strongin and Gall, 2000) This kind of idea also allows for spending less money on teaching and training teachers about technology, instead using the money saved on other areas like purchasing technology for school use.
Students who are studying to become teachers already feel more comfortable using computers and other forms of technology, so introducing more while they are still pre-service will benefit them when they actually make it into a classroom. Providing these technology skills to future teachers will make them feel more comfortable using technology in a classroom setting and encourage them to use technology more in the future. (Lohr, et al., 2000) If we can know how comfortable pre-service teachers are with technology before they begin their teacher training, then we can focus in on what topics would need to be covered.
The use of the ACOT (The Apple Classroom of Tomorrow) instrument for pre-service teachers proves to be very valuable in assessing how they understand and have the ability to use technology. (Oberlander and Talbert-Johnson, 2007) Today we see the use of ACOT in developing the much needed 21st century skills that all students will need for success. The idea of surveying pre-service teachers to see what they know is also similar to asking teachers what they know about technology. This idea seems to be very in touch with developing strong teachers with a strong technological skill set.
Using technology to help pre-service students plan problem-solving type lessons will also help them to use technology in their own classrooms. Harriette Anne LaVarre Spiegel discussed the idea that encourages pre-service teachers to focus on problem solving or Problem Based Learning in their lessons. (Speigel, 2002) Higher education students currently enrolled are seeing this more and more in their coursework, and should be able to transfer that to their own classrooms. This style of problem solving by using technology can be very beneficial and students or pre-service teachers that already have experience using it will be well ahead of the game.
There is an overwhelming desire to date to put technology in teacher’s hands and just simply tell them to use it. The reason we need to focus on both teachers and pre-service teachers is because technology is ever-growing and no one can ever be a true expert. There are too many emerging technologies that even if we focus on pre-service teachers, they will still need to be trained on new technologies that have come since they graduated their program. (Rogers, 1999) There should be specific goals for educators, like the ones outlined in Constance Schmidt’s paper on her Instructional Technology Support Center. Goal number one is, “Training pre-service and in-service teachers in the use of Instructional Technology.” (Schmidt, 1996) If we focus on training both sides everyone seems to stay on the same level when it comes to educating our students.
Training in-service teachers is important and that should never stop, but teaching pre-service teachers to plan technology enriched lessons will help raise the bar for in-service teachers as well. Summerville and Reid-Griffin discuss in their article the need to develop a system to teach pre-service teachers how to use their higher order thinking skills to create high quality lesson plans. Once they focused on that specific of an area they were able to create their own teacher preparation class that focused on using technology in their teaching with great success. Having the ability to teach to use technology early on in the career of a teacher greatly changes their feelings towards using technology further down the road. (Summerville and Reid-Griffin, 2008)
Training teachers, who will eventually be cooperating teachers for potential student teachers, in technology will serve both the in-service teacher and the pre-service teacher. Rimjhim Banerjee studied the effect of a teacher in the field trained in technology integration on a pre-service teacher. He found that by having a trained teacher as a mentor or cooperating teacher the pre-service teacher learned more regarding technology in the classroom, especially if there was a limited amount of technology. (Banerjee, 2004) Allowing teachers who are already proficient in technology to teach and mentor those pre-service teachers who are entering the field will make it easier on almost any school to train teachers in technology.
There are many different barriers to using technology in schools and to get people to want to use technology in their classrooms. The biggest barrier regardless of whether or not the teacher was pre-service or in-service was that of training. This is where training is so important. The complaint is that teachers or pre-service teachers do not receive enough training to feel comfortable incorporating technology: the training was simply improperly handled, or just simply non-existent. (Norton, et al., 2000; Bowman, et al., 2001; Hsiung, 2000; Banerjee, 2004) Another barrier that needs to be overcome is a lack of follow up on the training. (Hsiung, 2000) Teachers are presented so much material as the move through their career. They are trained for one day on a specific item and then they are expected to become a master on that one particular item by using it in lesson plans and incorporating it into their classrooms. By providing a foundation in incorporating technology before leaving a teacher training program, we as educators can provide a solid foundation for integrating technology in classrooms.
Even the teacher that has a technology background may still find it difficult to let go and embrace technology. In Norton’s study there were several math teachers who had a background in technology but could not seem to give up the idea of their traditional classroom. They had excuse after excuse as to why they could not utilize a simple math program to help them teach a concept. (Norton, et al., 2000) This blindness to accepting a new way of doing something is hurting students in the long run even though the teachers say all they want is to improve student performance. They fail to even look at the new concept because they are so stuck in their ways.
In my experience, teacher in-service programs have traditionally been a place for teachers to catch up on grades, complete a crossword puzzle or text with some friends. Especially when it comes to technology, where there is very little to go around there is no real reason to want to learn any more if you don’t have the resources. With the different trends out there on learning about different technologies, teachers today can really benefit even if their school has a small amount of technology. Pre-service teachers have a real distinct advantage because they get to learn all about the new and upcoming technologies. Once pre-service teachers enter the field, they quickly realize that the technology they learned about may not be used in their district. Both pre and in-service teachers need to focus on what is best for the students, with specific regards to employing technology integration in classrooms. They have to be willing to accept that technology is here to stay and it can help make lessons more appealing to students. What can we do now to increase awareness for all teachers about how easy technology can be to incorporate into lessons? How can we get teachers out of that familiar rut that makes it so easy for them to forget about technology while they are teaching? These are questions that I would like to include in my future work regarding technology integration. Using these with colleagues can provide valuable insight to how others view the integration of technology into education.
Boser, Richard A. and, Daugherty, Michael K. (Fall 1994). In-Service Activities for Technology Education: The Role of Colleges and Universities. Journal of Technology Education, 6, Retrieved June 3, 2009, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v6n1/boser.jte-v6n1.html
Bowman J., Newman D.L.,, and Masterson J. (2001).Adopting Educational Technology: Implications for Designing Interventions. Journal of Educational Computing Research. 25, 81-94.
Lohr, L., Javeri, M., Mahoney, C., Strongin, D., & Gall, J. (2000, October 1). Rapid Application Development of a Self-Paced Pre-Service Teacher Technology Course. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED455776) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Norton, S., McRobbie, C., & Cooper, T. (2000, September 1). Exploring Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Reasons for Not Using Computers in Their Teaching: Five Case Studies. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 33(1), 87-109. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ616775) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Oberlander, J., & Talbert-Johnson, C. (2007, February 20). Envisioning the Foundations of Technology Integration in Pre-Service Education. Online Submission, (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED501246) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Rakes, G.C., Fields, V.S., and Cox, K.E. (2006). The influence of teachers' technology use on instructional practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(4):409-424.
Rogers, P. (1999, January 1). Barriers to Adopting Emerging Technologies in Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED429556) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Schmidt, C. (1996, January 1). The Instructional Technology Support Center at MTSU: Integrating Technology into K-12 and University Classrooms. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED400817) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Spiegel, H. (2002, June 1). Pre-Service Teacher Training and Implementation in the Classroom: Considerations. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED475952) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Summerville, J., & Reid-Griffn, A. (2008, September 1). Technology Integration and Instructional Design. TechTrends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning, 52(5), 45-51. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ818853) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Upon reviewing the literature from various scholarly journals and online databases, the current trend in teacher education in technology, is that while we should continue to work with teachers to incorporate technology into their lessons, we should begin to focus on pre-service teachers and bolstering their ability to use technology before they reach the classroom. Today’s teacher has a plethora of technology available to them to utilize in their classrooms but it seems as if most teachers are too afraid to use it. It is important to continue to educate teachers on how to use the technology that is available. Technology in-services, if done right, can be very beneficial to the teachers who attend them so that they can use any available technology in their classrooms. Pre-service teachers need to spend time learning the technologies in classrooms. This will ensure that we will not have another generation of teachers in the classroom who fail to use the most up to date technologies.
There are many benefits to working with teachers to develop a sense of technology use for their own classrooms. In many of the studies that I looked at I found that teachers want to be able to use technology in their classroom. They expect to be able to walk in the day of a lesson and want the technology to work without ever understanding how it works. They want to be able to use it as a support system to what they are teaching and hope that it will be able to aide them in the education of their students (Bowman, Newman and Masterson, 2001; Norton, Campbell and Cooper, 2000). Unfortunately for many of the teachers, the research also talks about teachers not wanting to learn all they need to before implementing technology or they feel that the effort required of them to learn all about the new technologies does not outweigh the rewards when it comes to integration of technology into their lessons.
This negative of teachers not wanting to use technology as much falls under the category of them simply not being comfortable using the available technology because they never learned how. In Bowman’s study they discuss that teachers need to be open to the change and have a desire to bring technology into their classroom if they want to change the stigma of not using technology. They focused on the question “How is technology adapted for use in education within a school district and in what ways can teachers be used as a point of contact to engage this work?” (Bowman, et al., 2001) They answered this question through a series of activities that they studied. The first activity that was discussed, which was also discussed in Norton’s study and in Boser and Daugherty’s study, involved asking questions of teachers. They asked teachers and coordinators in their schools about resources available to them and what they wanted to see happen in in-services to better serve their needs. (Bowman, et al., 2001; Norton et al., 2000; Boser and Daugherty, 1994) When you give a staff of teachers the ability to answer questions about what they want to do, you will be able to focus their needs in a Teacher In-Service that will benefit them. “Teachers must be involved in all phases of the planning process even if they have limited understanding of how they will use technology.” (Bowman, et al., 2001)
On all levels if you can get teachers talking about technology in their classrooms, you can get them excited about wanting to bring technology into their lessons. Other trends that Bowman’s team brings up are the inclusion of teachers in developing a plan of action to incorporate technology into their school. This gets teachers excited about the prospect of using technology as well as giving them a sense of wanting to use the technology that will be available for them. (Bowman, et al., 2001) Norton’s team discussed using computers in mathematics education and how effective they can be if the staff is open to the ideas. If teachers are not opened to ideas and they are stuck in their own ways of teaching and never using technology then the job of any technology in-service trainer is made that much harder. (Norton, et al., 2000) If educators do not step out of their comfort zone and try to accept a new way of teaching by using technology, they will never learn to use technology successfully in their own classroom.
Allowing teachers to learn elements of technology will ultimately allow them to be more comfortable integrating technology into their lessons. Some teachers already have an innate ability when it comes to technology, so being able to use a knowledgeable teacher as a resource for a teacher who knows less about technology becomes invaluable. In Hsiung’s paper on Professional Development, she discusses that “teachers do want to keep informed and improve on their ability to help their students learn better, but they use a variety of resources…they rely heavily on each other for professional growth.” (Hsiung, 2000) Bowman’s team and Hsiung have polar opposite findings when it comes to the trends on In-Services for technology during the summer months. Bowman discusses that it is a positive to work in the summer that teachers can work at their own pace and get it completed easily while Hsiung feels that summer workshops are ineffective way to integrate technology because the teachers are removed from the classroom for a summer vacation. (Bowman, et al., 2001; Hsiung, 2000) Looking at the research, it is up to an in-service instructor to get a feel for what his target audience already knows and allow those that have knowledge in the field of technology to be able to assist and help lead discussions on technology. With this there will be more open dialogue between educators and the ability to use technology will become easier as more people become comfortable discussing its uses. This open dialogue between a novice computer user and a more knowledgeable technology user in a school could encourage discussions of what can be accomplished all school year.
One other trend that was introduced in the studies was that of modeling a specific idea or technology to the staff and allowing them to see it in action before working with it themselves. Boser’s study and Norton’s study on mathematics teachers discuss modeling as a way to introduce technology into in-services and classrooms. “Modeling is a meaningful educational practice, therefore it is important to understand the types of instructional methods used to deliver in-service activities.” (Boser and Daugherty, 1994) In Norton’s study the idea was to show how math software could help and assist in teaching concepts of mathematics. The problem was that many of the educators were set in their ways of teaching and could not be bothered by using technology. When showed the program and what it could do and after allowing the presenter to use the program with students in their class, many of the math teachers felt better about computers and the program use in their own classroom. (Norton, et al., 2000) Even if they do not continue to use the technology this study shows the importance of modeling technologies to current teachers. It allows them to see the benefit and ease some of the fears and anxieties of losing control in their classroom to a machine.
Pre-Service teachers have a distinct advantage over teachers that have been teaching for a longer period of time. They have exposure to new and upcoming technologies being introduced to them at their teacher training institution. This is one of the biggest benefits that they can enjoy. There is research out there that suggests that students entering into teacher training lack skills to be proficient in technology due to the fact they came from a school that lacked in technology. (Oberlander and Talbert-Johnson, 2007) In the same study however, in order to get these students up to date on technologies for classrooms they need to be exposed to effective technology integration early on in their training. Technology as a teaching tool will be utilized more by those more comfortable with implementing it and understanding how to use it.
Showing pre-service teachers how to use technology before they enter the classroom will allow them to focus on using technology the right way. Oberlander and Talbert-Johnson discuss that this will allow pre-service teachers to access higher order thinking skills in the practice and use of technology for their classroom. In a study done by Linda Lohr, Manisha Javeri, Chris Mahoney, Dawn Strongin, and James Gall at the University of Northern Colorado, they realized that coming into teaching already using the technology and understanding how to use it puts them ahead of teachers already in place and teaching classes. (Lohr, Javeri, Mahoney, Strongin and Gall, 2000) This kind of idea also allows for spending less money on teaching and training teachers about technology, instead using the money saved on other areas like purchasing technology for school use.
Students who are studying to become teachers already feel more comfortable using computers and other forms of technology, so introducing more while they are still pre-service will benefit them when they actually make it into a classroom. Providing these technology skills to future teachers will make them feel more comfortable using technology in a classroom setting and encourage them to use technology more in the future. (Lohr, et al., 2000) If we can know how comfortable pre-service teachers are with technology before they begin their teacher training, then we can focus in on what topics would need to be covered.
The use of the ACOT (The Apple Classroom of Tomorrow) instrument for pre-service teachers proves to be very valuable in assessing how they understand and have the ability to use technology. (Oberlander and Talbert-Johnson, 2007) Today we see the use of ACOT in developing the much needed 21st century skills that all students will need for success. The idea of surveying pre-service teachers to see what they know is also similar to asking teachers what they know about technology. This idea seems to be very in touch with developing strong teachers with a strong technological skill set.
Using technology to help pre-service students plan problem-solving type lessons will also help them to use technology in their own classrooms. Harriette Anne LaVarre Spiegel discussed the idea that encourages pre-service teachers to focus on problem solving or Problem Based Learning in their lessons. (Speigel, 2002) Higher education students currently enrolled are seeing this more and more in their coursework, and should be able to transfer that to their own classrooms. This style of problem solving by using technology can be very beneficial and students or pre-service teachers that already have experience using it will be well ahead of the game.
There is an overwhelming desire to date to put technology in teacher’s hands and just simply tell them to use it. The reason we need to focus on both teachers and pre-service teachers is because technology is ever-growing and no one can ever be a true expert. There are too many emerging technologies that even if we focus on pre-service teachers, they will still need to be trained on new technologies that have come since they graduated their program. (Rogers, 1999) There should be specific goals for educators, like the ones outlined in Constance Schmidt’s paper on her Instructional Technology Support Center. Goal number one is, “Training pre-service and in-service teachers in the use of Instructional Technology.” (Schmidt, 1996) If we focus on training both sides everyone seems to stay on the same level when it comes to educating our students.
Training in-service teachers is important and that should never stop, but teaching pre-service teachers to plan technology enriched lessons will help raise the bar for in-service teachers as well. Summerville and Reid-Griffin discuss in their article the need to develop a system to teach pre-service teachers how to use their higher order thinking skills to create high quality lesson plans. Once they focused on that specific of an area they were able to create their own teacher preparation class that focused on using technology in their teaching with great success. Having the ability to teach to use technology early on in the career of a teacher greatly changes their feelings towards using technology further down the road. (Summerville and Reid-Griffin, 2008)
Training teachers, who will eventually be cooperating teachers for potential student teachers, in technology will serve both the in-service teacher and the pre-service teacher. Rimjhim Banerjee studied the effect of a teacher in the field trained in technology integration on a pre-service teacher. He found that by having a trained teacher as a mentor or cooperating teacher the pre-service teacher learned more regarding technology in the classroom, especially if there was a limited amount of technology. (Banerjee, 2004) Allowing teachers who are already proficient in technology to teach and mentor those pre-service teachers who are entering the field will make it easier on almost any school to train teachers in technology.
There are many different barriers to using technology in schools and to get people to want to use technology in their classrooms. The biggest barrier regardless of whether or not the teacher was pre-service or in-service was that of training. This is where training is so important. The complaint is that teachers or pre-service teachers do not receive enough training to feel comfortable incorporating technology: the training was simply improperly handled, or just simply non-existent. (Norton, et al., 2000; Bowman, et al., 2001; Hsiung, 2000; Banerjee, 2004) Another barrier that needs to be overcome is a lack of follow up on the training. (Hsiung, 2000) Teachers are presented so much material as the move through their career. They are trained for one day on a specific item and then they are expected to become a master on that one particular item by using it in lesson plans and incorporating it into their classrooms. By providing a foundation in incorporating technology before leaving a teacher training program, we as educators can provide a solid foundation for integrating technology in classrooms.
Even the teacher that has a technology background may still find it difficult to let go and embrace technology. In Norton’s study there were several math teachers who had a background in technology but could not seem to give up the idea of their traditional classroom. They had excuse after excuse as to why they could not utilize a simple math program to help them teach a concept. (Norton, et al., 2000) This blindness to accepting a new way of doing something is hurting students in the long run even though the teachers say all they want is to improve student performance. They fail to even look at the new concept because they are so stuck in their ways.
In my experience, teacher in-service programs have traditionally been a place for teachers to catch up on grades, complete a crossword puzzle or text with some friends. Especially when it comes to technology, where there is very little to go around there is no real reason to want to learn any more if you don’t have the resources. With the different trends out there on learning about different technologies, teachers today can really benefit even if their school has a small amount of technology. Pre-service teachers have a real distinct advantage because they get to learn all about the new and upcoming technologies. Once pre-service teachers enter the field, they quickly realize that the technology they learned about may not be used in their district. Both pre and in-service teachers need to focus on what is best for the students, with specific regards to employing technology integration in classrooms. They have to be willing to accept that technology is here to stay and it can help make lessons more appealing to students. What can we do now to increase awareness for all teachers about how easy technology can be to incorporate into lessons? How can we get teachers out of that familiar rut that makes it so easy for them to forget about technology while they are teaching? These are questions that I would like to include in my future work regarding technology integration. Using these with colleagues can provide valuable insight to how others view the integration of technology into education.
Resources
Banerjee, Rimjhim (2004). Technology Training For In-Service Teachers – An Evaluation. Retrieved June 3, 2009, from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis University Library Web site: https://idea.iupui.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1805/243/Banerjee.pdf?sequence=1
Boser, Richard A. and, Daugherty, Michael K. (Fall 1994). In-Service Activities for Technology Education: The Role of Colleges and Universities. Journal of Technology Education, 6, Retrieved June 3, 2009, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v6n1/boser.jte-v6n1.html
Bowman J., Newman D.L.,, and Masterson J. (2001).Adopting Educational Technology: Implications for Designing Interventions. Journal of Educational Computing Research. 25, 81-94.
Hsiung, Yu-Lu. (2001). In-service Professional Development and Technology Integration Philosophy of Teachers. Retrieved June 3, 2009, from http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/courses/ci407su02/students/yhsiung/wp2.htm
Lohr, L., Javeri, M., Mahoney, C., Strongin, D., & Gall, J. (2000, October 1). Rapid Application Development of a Self-Paced Pre-Service Teacher Technology Course. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED455776) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Norton, S., McRobbie, C., & Cooper, T. (2000, September 1). Exploring Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Reasons for Not Using Computers in Their Teaching: Five Case Studies. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 33(1), 87-109. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ616775) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Oberlander, J., & Talbert-Johnson, C. (2007, February 20). Envisioning the Foundations of Technology Integration in Pre-Service Education. Online Submission, (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED501246) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Rakes, G.C., Fields, V.S., and Cox, K.E. (2006). The influence of teachers' technology use on instructional practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(4):409-424.
Rogers, P. (1999, January 1). Barriers to Adopting Emerging Technologies in Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED429556) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Schmidt, C. (1996, January 1). The Instructional Technology Support Center at MTSU: Integrating Technology into K-12 and University Classrooms. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED400817) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Spiegel, H. (2002, June 1). Pre-Service Teacher Training and Implementation in the Classroom: Considerations. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED475952) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.
Summerville, J., & Reid-Griffn, A. (2008, September 1). Technology Integration and Instructional Design. TechTrends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning, 52(5), 45-51. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ818853) Retrieved June 3, 2009, from ERIC database.